Sacramento daily record-union., 1887-08-12
HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE KILLED
OR INJURED.
An Excursion Train with 300 People
Piunses Through Bridge
Terrible Scenes.
lsrarclAL prsrATcurs TO TEE nrcoap-umos.y


carrying $50 eSeursionfsts, and was holzad for
Niagara Falls. The train had been made up
all along the Ene Of the Toledo, Peorif ard
Western road a0d the exeursionists hailed
from various parts in central Illinois The
bulk of them, heSeYer, came from Peoria.
Some ofthe passengers came from Canton, frors
FL Paso, Washington and, in fact, all the sta
tions along the line-some from as far West as
Burlington aud keokuk. la. special and
cheap rate had been usade for the excursion,
and all sorts of people took advantage of it,
When the train drew out of Peoria at O'Clock
last evening IL was loaded to its utmost capacity
Every berth in thes sleepers was taken, and
the day cars carried sixty people each. The
train was so heavy that woengines were hitched
to it, and when it passed .his place it was an
hour and half behind time Chatsworth. the
next station east of here; is six miles off, and the
run there was made in seven minutes 50 the
TERRIBLE MOMENTUM OF THOSE FIFTEEN COACHES
And two heavy engines shooting through space
at the rate Of mile minute can be under
stood. No stop was made at Chatsworth, and
on, and on, the heavy train, with its living
freight, spedthrough the darkness OF the night
Three miles east of Chatsworth is little
dry run about ten feet deep and fifteen wide.
Over this was stretched an ordinary wooden
trestle bridge, and as the train came laundering
down on it, what was the horror of the engineer
on the front engine when he saw that
THIS BRIDGE WAS AFIRE.
Right before his eyes leapedthe bright flames
and the next instant he was among them
There was no chance to stop. Had there been
warning it would have taken a mile to stop that
on-rushing mass of wood, iron and human lives,
and the train was within one hundred wards of
the red-tongued messenger of death before they
flashed their final signals into the engineers s
face. But he passed over in safety, the first en-
gine keeping the rails. AS it went over the
bridge fell beneath it, and it could only have
been the terrific speed of the train which saved
the lives OF the engineer and his fireman. But
the next engine went down, and instantly the
deed of death was done.
CAR CRASHED IaTo Carl
Coaches piled one on top of another, and in the
twinkling of an eye nearly one hundred people
found instant death and fifty more were so hurt
they could not hive. As for the wounded. they
were everywhere. Only the sleeping coaches
escaped, and rs the startled and halfdreSsed
passengers came tumbling out of them, they
-ound such a scene of death as is rarely wilt
messed, and such work TO do, that ii seemed as
if human hands were utterly incapable.
THE AWFUL WRECK.
1t lacked just five minutes of midnight Down
in the ditch lay the second engine, AcClintock
the engineer dead, and fireman Applegate badly
injured. On top were piled the three baggage
cars, on top OF each other like a child's card
house after it had swept it with its hand. Then
came the six day coaches. They were tele-
scoped as cars never were before, and three of
them were pressed into just space enough for
one. The second car had mounted off its trucks,
crushed through the car ahead of it, crushing
the woodwork aside like tinder, aud lay there
resting on the tops of the seats, while every
passenger in the front car was lying dead or
dying underneath. Out of that car but four peo-
pie came alive.
On the top of the second car Law the third and
although the latter did not, cover its bearer so
completely as the one beneath, its bottom was
covered with the blood of its victims. The
other three cars were not so badly crushed but
they were broken and twisted in every conceiy-
able way, and every crushed timber and beam
represented a crushed human frame or q broken
bone. Instantly the air was filed with the
CRIES OF THE WOUNDED AND THE sIIRIEKs OF
THOSE ABOUT TO DIE.
The groans of men and the screams of women
united TO make an appalling sound, and above
all could be heard the agonzing cries of little
children as, in some instances, they lay pinned
alongside their dead parents. And there was
another terrible danger yet to be met.
The bridge was still burning, andthe wrecked
cars were lying around the fercely- burning en-
bers. Everywhere in the wreck were wounded
and unhurt men, women and children, Whose
lives could be saved If they could be gotten out
but whose oeath-and in most horrible form
was certain if the twisted wood of the broken
cars caught hre. And to light the IRE there was
not drop of water and only some fifty able
bodied men who had still presence of mind and
nerve enough to do their duty.
The only light was the light of the burning
bridge, and with so much OF its aidthe fifty men
went to work to subdue Ii
GHTING THE FLAMES.
For four hours they fought like tends and for
four hours the victory hung in the balance.
Earth was the only weapon with which the foe
could be fought, and so the attempt was made
to smother 1t. There was no pick or shovel
with which to dig, no baskets or barrows to
carry the earth and so desperately they dug
their fingers down into the earth, which was al.
most as hard as stone and heaped the precious
handfuls, thus hardly won, upon the encroach-
ing flames, and with this earthwork, built hand
full by handful, kept back the foe.
While this was going on, other brave men
crept underneath the wrecked cars, beneath the
fire and the wooden bars which held as prison.
ers so many lives, and with pieces of board
and sometimes their hands, beat back the
flames when they flashed up alongside some IN
fortunate wretch, who, pinned down by beam,
looked as if his death by fire was certain.
BLoop-cURDLISG SCENES
While the fight was thus going on, the ears OF
the workers were filed with the groans of dying
men al I'd the anguished entreaties of those
whose death seemed certain unless the
terrible blaze could be extinguished. The
cries of those too badly hurt to
care in what manner the end We're brought
about, SO that only 1t should be quick
So they dug up the earth with their hands re-
gardless of the blood streaming out from broken
fnger-nails. and heaving it up in little mounds,
while all the while came the heart-rending cry.
/" For Gods sake, don't let Us burn 10 death ~
But tinolly the victory was won.
THE FIEE WAS PuE OFT,
After four hours OF endeavors, and, as its last
SPARKS died away, a light came up in the east to
take its place, and dawn came upon scene OF
horror. While the fight had. been going on, men
had been dying, and there were not SO many
wounded to take out OF the wreck as there had
beenfour hours before but in the meantime the
country had been aroused.
Help had come from Chatsworth Forest and
Piper City. As the dead were laid reverently
alongside of each other, ont in the corT- -fie Ids,
there were ready hands to-take them into Chats
worth while some of the wounded were carried
to- Piper City. One hundr9d and eighteen was
the awful number of the dead, while the
wounded number four times that figure. The
full tale of the dead cannot, however, be told
yet for days.
THE GHoUIs SCENT THEIR PREY.
No sooner had the wreck occurred than a
scene of robbery commenced. Some band OF
unspeakable misereants, heartless and with
guerrillas who throng upon battlefield the
night after the confies, TO filch from the dead
the money which thay received for their meagra
pay, stealing even the bronze medals and rob,
worthless emblems of their fathers bravery. 20
last night did these human hyenas plumber ahe
dead from this terrible accident, and take even
the shoes which covered their feet. Who these
wretches are is not now known.
HORRIBLE sSsPICioS or FOUL PLAY
Whether they were q band of pickpaekets,
who accompanied the train, or some robber
gang lurking IN the vicinity, cannot he said.
The horrible. suspicion, however, ex-sts-and
there are many who give II credit-that the ac-
cident was q deliberately planned cssa of train
wreckiDg,. and that the bridge. was set
on fire by miscreants who. hoped to
seize ths opportunity offered and the
fact tina. the bridge was so far consumed ut
the time the train come along. end the added
fact that the train was an hour and q half
late. ere pointed out as evidence of careful
conspiracy. II seems hardly possible that MIA
could be so lost TO all feeling but creatures VINO
viii rob dead men-who Will steal from the
dying who will plunder the wounded aeld
down By the broken beams OF a wrecked car;
toe wounded whose death by fire seemed
iIaminent-can do almost anything watch is
base and that is W bst these fiends in human
form did. They went into the cars when tbs
fire was burning -ercely underneath. and when
the poor wretches Who were pinned i5Te begged
them for Gods sake ~ help them oat, stripped
them of theit watches and jeweiry and searched
| their pockets
VIII the dead bodies we're laid il